


million reasons

by casdoms (moffwithhishead)



Series: season 12 [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Dean Has Self-Worth Issues, Depression, Episode Tag, Gen, M/M, Post-Episode: s12e03 The Foundry, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, dean and mary's relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:32:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8400058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moffwithhishead/pseuds/casdoms
Summary: Dean laughs somewhat hysterically, “She’s alive, you know? She’s - she’s here. And she’s - she’s my mom. She’s not like, a ghost or fucking Eve or whatever. She’s here. It’s her, you know?”Castiel sounds hesitant, “Dean...”“I mean she’s her, Sam’s himself, and I’m -” Dean’s knees kinda give out and he ends up crouching down in the middle of his room with his elbows resting on his knees.“And I’m me,” he chokes out as he runs his free hand through his hair. “And it only took me a week to fuck the whole thing up.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I literally ran downstairs at 9:55 when the credits rolled to grab my laptop because my mind started writing this. I'm Smad (sad/mad) that they took Mary away from Dean and Sam. Can't they just have one good thing in their life?????
> 
> title from lady gaga's song of the same name because, well... it's stuck in my head and it fits. 
> 
> find me on tumblr @ deansmom

Dean stands there for about ten seconds after the door slams before he breaks.

He slams his hands down on the table and storms out of the room without a second glance or word to Sam.

“Dean,” he hears his brother try.

He ignores him. 

Dean stops by the kitchen and grabs the bottle of vodka he stashed in the back of the freezer for Charlie’s last visit. He’s got other stuff in his room.

There’s a part of his brain that’s telling him to take a breath and to maybe talk to his brother but the rest of his brain is just... laughing at him. 

He slams his bedroom door shut like he’s fifteen again and feels a spike of satisfaction when the pictures on that wall rattle.

It’s only when he’s standing there staring at his empty bed - his empty bed that his mom was sitting on just two days ago - that he lets himself feel. 

His mom doesn’t want him. His mom left just like John did.

Dean starts laughing abruptly before it trails off into an angry combination of a sob and a yell. He throws the bottle of vodka at his dresser, the one where the picture from his third birthday sits. 

It hits the wall and shatters, vodka exploding all over his stuff.

He can’t find it in him to care right now. 

He knows he’s crying but he refuses to admit it to himself, to anyone. He’s a grown ass fucking man who’s lived thirty plus years without his mom and he’s not gonna cry about it. He’s not gonna cry because she doesn’t want him. 

The spare bottle of whiskey he keeps in his desk drawer is half empty but Dean can’t bring himself to care right now when his other option is going back out into the bunker to talk to Sam. 

To see his little brother’s equally heartbroken face. 

“Fuck,” he says through a laugh and takes a swig of the whiskey. He wipes his chin off when some drizzles down it, “Fucking stellar job, Dean.”

The whiskey helps him tamp down the heartbreak for the moment.

He sits down on the wrong side of his bed because there’s no pictures of his mom over here for him to stare at. There’s no pictures of the person he used to know over here to laugh at him. 

Of course she doesn’t want him. Of course.

The Dean she knew was a kid who loved his mom more than anything and talked about trains and wore an ‘I Wuv Hugz’ t-shirt. The Dean she knew wasn’t a fucked up monster who tore the world apart again and again and again. The Dean she knew didn’t kill everyone important to him. That Dean didn’t drive away the people who lived, either. 

Of course she doesn’t want him - he’s poison.

Dean hiccups and drains the last of the bottle, throwing it behind him. He hears it smash into the wall and knock some stuff on his dresser over. Good.

He stares at his hands for a moment, specifically at the ring he pulled out again. John’s wedding ring. He’d pulled it out for Mary, to see if she wanted it, but she wasn’t interested. He hasn’t had a chance to take it off yet. 

It’s almost funny, really, that Dean’s surprised this is how it went. 

I mean, Dean Winchester? Get something good in his life with no strings attached?

Dean scoffs a little and takes the ring off. He stares at it for a beat before aggressively shoving it into his pocket, like he’s trying to get rid of the god damn thing. 

He should’ve burned it years ago but he’s too fucking sentimental for that.

God, John would be giving him so much shit for this.

Dean sniffles and wipes his face off, glancing around the wrong side of his room. He hates himself for being upset. He _knows_ better than this. He knows how this shit plays out for him and Sam and it’s not well. 

His phone interrupts his self-loathing tirade with an abrupt chirp.

Stupidly, his first thought is ‘what if it’s mom?’

He hates himself for how quickly he throws himself across the bed to grab it.

It’s not his mom though and an ugly, familiar voice in his head taunts him, ‘ _Why would it be, sweetheart? She doesn’t love you, Dean. She probably never did_.’

 **Cas (09:46PM):** Are you awake?

Dean sniffles again and rubs his hand over his face, trying to make it look like he hasn’t been crying. 

 **Dean (09:49PM):** yeah what’s up

His phone lights up with Cas’ face half a beat later and Dean closes his eyes for a moment to steel himself for this. It’s bad enough he fucking cried about it, he just - he can’t know. Cas can’t know Dean already fucked it up. 

He clears his throat as he answers, trying to sound normal, “Hey Cas. Everything okay?”

Castiel hesitates for a moment, which is incredibly unlike him - usually when it’s something like this, something about a case, he just dives right in and then goes for pleasantries.

For a second, Dean wonders if something happened and it’s not Cas calling him.

“Cas?” He tries again, pushing himself into an upright position. “You there?”

“Yes, I -” Cas starts and cuts himself off, sounding hesitant, “I’m here.”

Dean smiles despite himself and relaxes ever so minutely. “...So. Everything okay? Did you find Lucifer?”

Cas seems to hesitate again before he answers.

“In... a matter of speaking, yes,” he says carefully. “I know where Lucifer is but he’s - well. He’s a bit out of my reach at the moment.”

Dean snorts, “What, is he in heaven?”

He can practically hear Cas bristle at the well-intentioned but shitty jab.

“ ** _No_** ,” Cas says shortly. “The bottom of the ocean.”

“Ah,” Dean hums, “Forget your diving gear in your room?”

“Dean -” Castiel sounds somewhere between annoyed and concerned. It’s about par for the course for them so Dean will take it as a win.

Castiel says his name a little more forcefully, “ ** _Dean_**. Are you alright?”

Huh. Apparently he blacked out for a second.

“Yeah,” Dean clears his throat, surprised at how rough his voice sounds suddenly. “Yeah, I’m, uh - I’m great.” 

He leans back and looks over his shoulder at his dresser where the picture of him and his mom is still standing. He feels his heart drop.

“Yeah man I’m fucking great.” He laughs and it feels hollow. “I mean, what - what the hell do I have to be upset about, right?” Dean runs a hand over his face, “I mean - Sammy’s alive. So like, fucking win in that column, right?”

He stands up and starts pacing, his heart speeding up. 

“God and Amara fucked off to do, y’know, whatever deities do when they fight. And my mom -” He says this part with his voice pitched high and he sounds as panicked as he feels, “My mom! Is alive!”

Dean laughs somewhat hysterically, “She’s alive, you know? She’s - she’s here. And she’s - she’s my mom. She’s not like, a ghost or fucking Eve or whatever. She’s here. It’s her, you know?”

Castiel sounds hesitant, “Dean...”

“I mean she’s her, Sam’s himself, and I’m -” Dean’s knees kinda give out and he ends up crouching down in the middle of his room with his elbows resting on his knees.

“And I’m me,” he chokes out as he runs his free hand through his hair. “And it only took me a week to fuck the whole thing up.”

“Dean...” Castiel sighs, “I’m sure you didn’t -”

“You know she left, right?” Dean interrupts him with a laugh. He lets himself fall back onto his butt, the foot of his bed the only thing keeping him upright.

Castiel sounds shocked. He never sounds shocked. “What?” 

“Yeah,” Dean laughs, sounding as hysterical as he feels. “She said - that we’re not her boys or whatever. That being around us makes her miss them.”

 _God_ , he’d kill for a drink right now.

“That her Sam and Dean are you know, a baby and a four year old. That my dad -” he barks out another hysterical laugh, “My piece of shit god damn fucking **_dad_** \- she misses him, Cas. She misses her Sam and her Dean.”

He knows he’s bordering on sobbing and probably impossible to understand but Cas always knows. He always knows what Dean means.

“She said she loves us and -” Dean sniffles, trying to get himself under control, “And then she fucking left. She had her fucking bag packed this whole time Cas, this whole hunt she was just waiting for the moment to ditch us. To fucking ghost on us just like dad did.”

Castiel interrupts, “Dean, I’m sure -”

“No!” Dean half shouts back at him, “No, don’t say that wasn’t what she was planning Cas. She wanted to go on this hunt _by herself_. She was planning this the entire time.” 

He looks up at the ceiling and laughs quietly. He feels like his heart is going to come leaping out of his throat if he doesn’t throw up first.

Neither one of them says anything for a minute. It’s Dean who breaks first with a quiet little hiccup of a sob.

“It’s not fair, Cas...” He sets his forehead on his knees for a second, “I just...”

When he looks up again his eyes land on the jacket Mary borrowed in the cemetery. It’s still sitting on his chair. 

“I let myself believe that it was gonna be okay,” he says quietly, ignoring the way his voice breaks. “I let myself believe... just for a second - that this was safe. That this...” Dean takes a shuddering breath, his eyes closing again.

“I thought that this was going to be a good thing. I let myself... fuck,” he laughs a little and it feels like he’s rubbing his skin raw when he wipes the tears off this time. “I believed. For just, like, a second... that it was gonna be okay.” 

Cas sighs and he sounds tired. He sounds as tired as Dean feels. “Dean...”

“And you know what the worst part of it all is, Cas?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, “I know better than that. I know that good shit doesn’t happen to me without bad shit attached. I know how this game works and I still -” He doesn’t finish the thought out loud.

 _I still let myself get hurt when I know everyone always leaves. I don’t get the happy ending_.

He sniffles and looks at his nightstand where the picture of him, Sam, Mary and John sits in a picture frame he picked up at Rite Aid.

“I can be home in six hours,” Castiel finally says after a few minutes of silence. “Crowley is planning to do some digging into potential vessels. He doesn’t need me for that.” He takes a breath, “If I leave now, I can be home in six hours.”

Crowley. Dean will be angry about that later.

Right now he sighs and drops his head into his hands, genuinely thinking about it.

“I...” He clears his throat, deciding that he’s not gonna let the universe get the best of him again. He’s not gonna cry because he’s a fucking idiot who believed for ten minutes that he would actually get to have his mom back.

“I’m good, Cas.”

“Bull ** _shit_** ,” Cas shoots back with immediately.

It startles a genuine laugh out of Dean that seems to catch them both off guard.

“Yeah, well...” Dean shrugs out of habit, “I’m never really good, Cas. You can’t come home every time I’m not good.”

He hates himself a little bit for saying that.

“Besides,” he sniffs, “You got a job to do, right? You gotta - you gotta find Lucifer.”

Cas doesn’t say anything for a moment. When he does though, it practically knocks the wind out of Dean. “Some things are more important. And I hate to break it to you, but you are one of those things, Dean. I’m coming home.”

He’s something akin to speechless.

“Cas,” he sputters, “You don’t have to -”

“You’re right,” Cas interrupts him. “I don’t have to. I want to.”

Dean hears a car door slam shut on the other end of the line and he laughs somewhat disbelievingly, “You’re... insane.”

“Yes, well...” Castiel starts the truck up and Dean can _hear_ his smile. “I suppose I’ve learned from the best.”

Dean wonders if Cas can hear his own matching smile.

“I’ll be home soon. Try to rest, Dean.”

He’s prepared to say okay and hang up but his brain has different ideas. “Hey, Cas?”

Castiel sounds as surprised as Dean does at the turn of events, “Yes?”

“Can you...” Dean pushes himself up so he’s standing again and rubs the back of his neck. “I just... I don’t -”

 _I don’t want to be alone right now_. 

He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have to say it. Cas knows.

Dean sits down on his bed in the middle of the silence on the other end and pulls his shoes off.

“...Did I ever tell you about the dinosaurs, Dean?”

He lays down with his head on the pillow and turns so he’s staring at the other side of the bed, “You were around for that?”

Castiel huffs an amused laugh on the other end of the line, “I had a hand in creating them.”

“Whoa, somebody’s a Mr. Cool Guy.”

“Dean -”

“Don’t tell me, the brontosaurus - was that you?”

Castiel snaps a little, “Would you like to hear the story or not?”

Dean smiles to himself, happy to hear Cas being normal, “Okay, sorry. So, about the dinosaurs...”

 

* * *

 

The bed moving is the first thing that Dean notices. 

He feels like he has to make a conscious effort to pry his eyes open. Apparently he fell asleep at some point because his phone is stuck to his cheek.

Cas’ back is to him. He’s sitting on the bed and pulling his shoes off. His suit jacket is covering Dean’s jacket on the chair. He looks tired. 

“Hey,” Dean croaks quietly, fighting his eyes to stay open.

Castiel turns around and smiles tiredly when he meets Dean’s eyes, “Hello, Dean.”

He doesn’t give Dean a chance to say anything before he’s laying down next to him with his dress shirt off and his slacks in a pile on the floor. 

Castiel turns so he’s facing Dean with a small smile. He doesn’t say anything.

Dean shuffles across the bed, closing the distance between the two of them. He’s too tired and too drained to put up any pretense.

It’s no use anyway because Cas pulls him into a hug as soon as he can reach him and Dean just lets him do it. He tucks his head into the crook of Cas’ neck and closes his eyes as he hugs him back.

Cas kisses Dean’s temple with a quiet, content sigh.

“Sleep, Dean. I’ll be here in the morning.”

He believes him. 


End file.
